Little Miss Lifestyle UK Beauty and Lifestyle Blog: caramel

When you've been with someone for nearly 3 years, it isn't often that you get any more 'firsts'. However on Saturday afternoon, Matt and I made cookies together for the first time. It was really fun to share something I love doing with him and I thought cookies would be an easy thing to start off with. These are packed with two of our favourite things: Nutella (yum) and salted caramel (double yum).

We used this recipe that I've had pinned for ages - the only thing we changed was omitting the chocolate chips, purely because we didn't have any in the house and didn't fancy popping to the shops. The recipe gives you a lovely squidgy cookie with a melt in the middle surprise center and the sprinkle of salt on top brings everything together. The recipe is Nordic so the measurements are in cups rather than grams.

Ingredients

* 1/2 cup of butter

*1 1/2 cup of light brown sugar

* 1/2 cup of cocoa powder

* 2 eggs

* 1/4 tsp salt

* 3/4 tsp baking powder

* 2 cups of plain flower

* sea salt for sprinkling

* Nutella

* Salted Caramel (we used a ready made pot but you can make your own)

Method

001. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius (fan) and line two baking trays with baking parchment.

002. Melt the butter in a sauce pan. Take it off the heat as soon as it is melted so it doesn't brown or burn. In a separate bowl mix together the eggs and sugar. Mix in the melted butter until well combined.

003. Add the cocoa, salt and baking powder and stir until well combined.

004. Sift in the flour and mix well.
005. Take a tablespoon size amount of mixture and drop onto your tray. Make an indent in the middle large enough to fit a teaspoon of Nutella and a teaspoon of the salted caramel in.
006. Layer the Nutella and salted caramel on top of each other in the indent. Cover the filling with more cookie dough, making sure to seal all the edges.
007. Sprinkle the top of each cookie with a little salt.
008. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
009. Leave to cool on the trays for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling off.
010. Dust with icing sugar (optional!)

Let me know if you try this recipe by tweeting me! xxx

For his birthday Matt got an old-style popcorn making machine which is not only amazingly cool but is also really easy to use. The first opportunity to christen it came when one of my best friends from Uni came to stay for the weekend and on the first night we decided to have a proper film night complete with the Princess Diaries, candles, wine and freshly popped, calorie laden popcorn.

Pinterest is an amazing source of delicious dreamy recipes (you can follow me by clicking the button on the right) and after pinning a few things for inspiration I came up with a ridiculously decadent but super tasty recipe. It's not necessary to own a popping machine as you can do it in a pan or buy plain ready made popcorn which you can add the toppings to. This is also a very flexible recipe so feel free to add more or less of the ingredients according to your taste.

What you'll need:

* A large bowl of popped plain popcorn

* 10 Oreos

* 100g white chocolate chips

* 3 tablespoons dulche de leche/ carnation caramel

Method:

* Crush the Oreos with a rolling pin or by placing them under a chopping board and applying pressure to it. Make sure they are still in the wrappers before doing this otherwise you will have Oreos everywhere!

* Empty the chocolate chips into a microwaveable bowl and heat on a low heat for 30 seconds at a time until melted and smooth. You can do this over a ban marie if you so wish but it's not necessary.

* Drizzle the melted chocolate over the popcorn and toss until covered.

* Do the same with the caramel (it gives the Oreos something to stick to).

* Finally pour in the Oreos and toss again to make sure the the mixture is evenly distrupted throughout the popcorn.

And that's it! If you can, leave to cool for around half an hour to allow it to set but you can eat it straight away if you don't mind messy fingers.